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Data Storage Hardware Technology

Samsung Demos Future Memory Chips 177

Posted by timothy from the future-is-tense dept.
Fletcher points to this story in CNET Asia, excerpting "The Korean electronics giant unveiled an 8-gigabit flash memory chip Monday based on the 60-nanometer process, as well as a 2-gigabit DDR DRAM chip based on the 80-nanometer process. Flash chips, which retain data after a host computer is turned off, are used in flash cards and cell phones, while DDR DRAM is used inside PCs."
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Samsung Demos Future Memory Chips More

Samsung Demos Future Memory Chips

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  • Gigabit? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 )
    Why aren't they using conventional storage standards, RAM, and disk space are all in megabytes (1024 vs 1000 debating aside) saying something is *bit (giga,mega,kilo) implies a rate connectivity doesn't it?

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Billy69 ( 805214 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:48AM (#10317613)
      Generally ram/storage sizes on-die are given as bit sizes, and have been for a very long time. No, it doesn't indicate a data rate.

      • Re:Gigabit? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Epistax ( 544591 )
        I think he means to say that when a measurement is given in ****bits, it's usually speed. There's no reason to give either storage or bandwidth in bits anymore, so why not make a convention between the two? OR at least stop using one. I don't care how many rods to the barrel my car gets.

        • Re:Gigabit? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Billy69 ( 805214 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:01AM (#10317719)
          The manufacturers of the actual silicon will always use *bit for the size because they are developing something independant of architecture, and therefore *bit is the most relevant notation of size. On a PC it might be relevant to use 'quads' as a measurement, as all machine code and addressing is done in 32 bits, whereas on some older microcontrollers the addressing is in 4 bits, so that would be nibbles. Perhaps some technologies want single-bit accessability, as the storage is not used to store addresses/instructions/ASCII. Using *bit is the only truly platform independant measurement, because the 8-bit bytes is aribtary whilst the bit is indivisible.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion
            • CNET Asia? general public? Erm, no. I'm a programmer, have been for year, I have always seen these developments advertised as *bit, I remember the breakthrough of the first megabit die. Such IT websites are catering to the IT populous.

            • Re:Gigabit? (Score:2, Informative)

              by Grayputer ( 618389 )
              Yes BUT ... the general public is pretty stupid and would assume that a 2 gigabit flash chip advertized as 256 megabytes would mean 1 chip is all I need to upgrade from 128MB flash to 256MB flash. Needless to say that's not true (the chip is 2gbit x 1bit NOT 256mb x 8bits). In fact, in some applications you MAY need 9 or 10 of them to get 2 gigabytes of usable memory (parity or ECC memory applications).

              Plus as someone pointed out, claiming 256MB is not good marketing. The 'general public' is going to sa
          • Is there addressing such that a byte is indivisible? That is, if they store 1 gig (1073741824*8 bits), they have 3 extra bits of address space to specify the exact bit of memory you want? Once you've extracted the memory whether you take a byte, or word (which of course can be any size depending on the computer) true, it's up to you to decide how to use it... but can you really ask for any individual bit? I'm surprised you can even ask for an individual byte (which I am now assuming you can do).

            So anyw

            • Re:Gigabit? (Score:4, Informative)

              by angel'o'sphere ( 80593 ) <angelo.schneider@nOSpam.oomentor.de> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @09:31AM (#10318336) Journal
              A single chip stores single Bytes. A DIM or SIM is a smal plate with 8 or more chips.

              On a chip you can address every bit individually, or chunks of 4 or 8 bits, depending on your fetch and cash strategy.

              However on a DIM/SIM you fetch from all chips one bit each, and those get combined to a byte, or a word or a long word, depending on your architechture and the architectue of the chip/DIM.

              The logic on the DIM/SIM is responsible for combining bits from different chips to the words, the processor wants.

              Depending on usage of he chip, I mean planned usage, the ship might be organized in arbitrary word sizes. A common word size on a chip can e.g. be 128 bit for video ram.

              All the above is "principle" only. Today I guess it is far more complicated.

              angel'o'sphere

        • Re:Gigabit? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Frennzy ( 730093 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:58AM (#10318074) Homepage
          Actually, there are plenty of reasons to measure bandwidth in bits not bytes.

          When I size/plan/order circuits, I need to know raw throughput in bits/sec, because I may be ordering that circuit for a dedicated purpose, which can have significantly different overhead and efficiency than a different purpose.

          Whenever you see bandwidth measured in Bps (bytes per second) you are seeing, at best, an estimate. The reason is that people are concerned about *payload* when you mention bytes, not raw throughput.

          As overheard increases or decreases per packet (which can be caused by fragmentation, poor application design, etc), then the amount of payload data per packet changes, while the raw throughput does not. Try this as an exercise. Open up an FTP sire via MSIE, and transfer a large file from a decent server near you. Note how long it takes, and the data rate MSIE tells you that it comes in at. Now, open up an MS command prompt, and ftp to that same site, get the same file, and note how long it takes, and the data rate it tells you.

          Same site, same link, same file, same OS...two completely different download times/rates.

          When I order any circuit...I want to know what the actual bit rate of the line is. I don't want some marketing mumbo-jumbo about 'bytes per second'...I may not even use an 8 bit byte, or, they may use a different interpretation of 'kilo' and 'mega' when quoting data rates. Bit-rate is pure...because a bit is a bit is a bit, and a second is a second is a second.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by GeckoX ( 259575 )
      No shit, that's what I was thinking.

      Oh, wow, a 1 GB (not even really) storage card. Whoopdy doo shit. I hope the submitter is the one that is wrong, otherwise sheesh.

      • Re:Gigabit? (Score:5, Informative)

        by odie_q ( 130040 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:04AM (#10317740)
        First off, storage chip capacity is always measured in bits, and these chips are most likely (no, I haven't read the FA) 8Gib (eight gibibit, or 8x2^30 bits, i.e. 2^30 bytes or 1GiB). Look at your memory sticks and you will notice that they are equipped with mutliple memory chips, and the same goes for large capacity flash cards. This is not a 1GiB storage card, but a component that can be used to build large storage cards.

        What is new and interesting (for chip process nerds) about this is the 60nm process. Current chips are generally produced in a 130nm process. There are also 90nm chips in general production, and they're pretty much the shitnitz at the moment.
      • ...I already have 640k.

        QuakeIII is for... is for... oh who am I kidding, I need this like Bush needs credibility.

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Short Circuit ( 52384 ) * <mikemol@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:53AM (#10317651) Homepage Journal
      One gigabit is 128MB. Assuming a 64-bit memory bus width, one chip per bus bit, and 2 gigabits of storage per chip, you're talking about a 16GB DIMM.

      So the the terminology inclined, it is a significant advancement.

      A good summary of memory technology is here [arstechnica.com].

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd ( 2015 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:54AM (#10317652) Homepage Journal
      Memory chips are most often rated in bits, it has been that way for decades, I think. Even the RAM sticks you buy have chips that are often rated in bits. Only when it is assembled into a memory module or card does the byte term get used to describe its capacity. Few end users use the bare chips so confusing the consumer isn't a concern..

      256megabit doesn't mean a rate, but the fact that it has 256 million bit cells.

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Xilman ( 191715 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:02AM (#10317725) Homepage Journal
      Why aren't they using conventional storage standards, RAM, and disk space are all in megabytes (1024 vs 1000 debating aside) saying something is *bit (giga,mega,kilo) implies a rate connectivity doesn't it?

      They are using conventional storage standards. Memory chips have been measured in (multiples of) bits for decades. When I started paying attention, around 1980 or so, the state of the art was something like 4k or 16k bits for DRAM and those chips were 1-bit wide. Even 8-bit wide chips were, and still are, quoted with storage capacity in bits. Again from the early days, an EEPROM with 2048 words of 8-bits each was described as a 16k device.

      Further down in the article it is stated that "The flash chip is designed to let consumer electronics designers put up to 16 gigabytes of data on a single memory card". Note that they use the conventional units, bytes, for memory cards.

      Remember, different conventions in different fields. You may think its silly, but that's life and you'd better get used to it.

      And, since you ask: no, bits doesn't necessarily imply a rate connectivity. Raw connections are usually rated in bits per second but high level data streams, such as ftp download speeds, are often quoted in bytes per second. I do not know whether there is a parallel here between comms and storage in the different conventions used to specify what the raw technology gives you and what is built out of that technology. I would be interested to learn whether it is more than coincidence.

      Paul

    • As others have mentioned, memory parts are alomst always described in terms of bits, and always have been. I believe there are a few reasons for this.

      Not all computers use (or used) eight bit bytes. The PDP-10 (?) and a few IBM machines used nine bit bytes organized as 36 byte words. I also think there were a few machines with sub-eight bit bytes, but I can't think of any right now.

      I seem to recall memory some memory parts being available with data bus widths other than eight. Caffine hasn't kicke

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:2, Informative)

      by JayJay.br ( 206867 )
      I'll bite, just for today.

      RAM modules are usually "measured" in bytes. However, RAM chips are, and have always been, measured in bits. Mainly because it used to be common configuration in RAM modules to have 8 chips, and the module's total capacity in bytes would be the same as the chip's capacity in bits.

      RAM chips used to be referenced as something like "1x8x1M", which would be eight memory chips, each with one megabit, and accessing one bit of data at once.

      A 512MB RAM module usually is 8x8x512M.

      I'm su
    • Why aren't they using conventional storage standards, RAM, and disk space are all in megabytes (1024 vs 1000 debating aside) saying something is *bit (giga,mega,kilo) implies a rate connectivity doesn't it?

      This is one thing that drives me nuts in the "IT" world. People get so lazy. When speaking, people (myself included I admit) will mention "100 megabit connections," but in order to talk about a rate, time must be involved. It is assumed that the rate is the given quantity per second. When reading an

    • Re:Gigabit? (Score:2, Informative)

      by fitten ( 521191 )
      They are using conventional storage standards for RAM CHIPS.

      Putting the word "Byte" on it implies some layout. A memory chip is just a big array of bits and denotes mostly how big/small the chip has gotten. For example, if they say we've made a breakthrough and now are producing 1Tb memory chips using 60nm. This means that they have figured out a way to make a chip using 60nm that has 1Tb as a single unit. Later on, some company using the 1Tb chips can arrange them and design circuits with them to crea

  • Good stuff, but currently they are prototypes (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:48AM (#10317616)

    People tend to get excited about new products like these; in a separate but equally relevant phenomenon, they tend not to RTFA.

    From the article:

    Both chips, however, are prototypes. Companies just began this year to make chips on the 90-nanometer process. (The nanometer measurement refers to average feature sizes on the chips). Eighty-nanometer chips may not come for at least another year, and 65-nanometer chips won't debut until at least the end of 2005.

    In other words, 16GB flash MP3 players will not be available in time for Xmas.
    • People tend to get excited about new products like these; in a separate but equally relevant phenomenon, they tend not to RTFA.
      Yep, that pretty much describes me.

      e-had - a purely electronic holy war; i-had - much like an e-had, but it's portable
      You forgot bin-had - people who get excited without rtfa.

  • You know... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Spazholio ( 314843 ) <slashdot@nOSPAM.lexal.net> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:49AM (#10317619) Homepage
    "Flash chips, which retain data after a host computer is turned off, are used in flash cards and cell phones, while DDR DRAM is used inside PCs."

    This being Slashdot and all, one wouldn't think that needed to be said. =)
    • he also could have said 'flash cards are non-volatile, while DDRM is volatile'
    • well abviously not everybody knows [slashdot.org] :)

    • Re:You know... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ThogScully ( 589935 ) <neilsd@neilschelly.com> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:08AM (#10317763) Homepage
      The more story submitters start adding simple explanations like that to article submissions, the closer this site gets to being something I can guide people to, normal people that is.

      Personally, I'm glad Fletcher wrote it that way.
      -N
      • If I wanted tech news for 'normal' people, I would go to CNN.
        I want it a high tech and obscure as possible..sometihg 16 year old trolls can't understand.
        • Are you suggesting I'm a 16-year old troll because I like that the story explains the summary terminology better than most?

          So long as tech news is only presented to the people who make it, the bulk of people out there will remain ignorant to the more important issues at play in the tech world. And if you don't think the knowledge presented in the tech world is at least marginally important to many people, then I think those 16-year old troll sites are probably just for you.
          -N

    • Thank you for the clarification.

      I was convinced that DDR was related to the Dance Dance Revolution phenomenom, and couldn't quite make out what the hell the article was about

  • DVD Quality? (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    That 16GBs of memory translates into storage of up to 16 hours of DVD-quality video or 4,000 MP3 audio files (at 5 minutes per song).

    Can someone explain to me how 1GB/hr equates to DVD quality? Most DVD films I know of run at 2-4GB/hr...

    Sure, low-bitrate DVD is 1GB/hr or less, but is that true "DVD Quality?"
    • Not really comparing apples-to-apples, but with modern codecs you can get in 1GB what MPEG2 does for DVD in 2-3GB.
    • I, also, have never understood the discreet VHS-esque categorizations of quality shown on DVD-R discs. Maybe it's under the same assumption as those who use DVD Shrink to get a dual layer disc to fit on a single layer disc and not think that any quality at all was lost.

  • SVCD on a chip (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tomhudson ( 43916 ) <barbara...hudson@@@barbara-hudson...com> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @07:51AM (#10317629) Journal
    an 8-gigabit flash memory chip
    Finally, an SVCD or KVCD movie on a keychain. Watch the MPAA have a holy shit on that.

    How soon to get 8 gigabytes, so we can put the original DVD? Probably 3 years.

    • That is 128 Megabytes, small movies.

      • Re:SVCD on a chip (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        <newbie-alert>

        Hello?! That's 2 gigabit per chip .

        Those chips are small and your Compact-Flash/DDR modules are usually made of many such chips.
      • Um... no it's not. It's 256 Megabytes.
      • Uh. 8 gigabits is 128MB? Let's try asking google what it thinks of that.

        Hey google, what's 8 gigabits in gigabytes [google.com]? Hmm, google says "8 gigabits = 1 gigabytes". Not only did you only pay attention to the 2Gb flash and get it wrong when you said 128MB, since it's actually 256MB, but the comment you replied to specifically talks about "an 8-gigabit flash memory chip" which is 1GB.

    • I'm just waiting for the day that I can just bring in my keychain into a movie rental store or heck a self serve kiosk at the local convenience store, download the movie onto my keychain and plug it directly into my TV to watch.

      • No DVD player
      • No discs
      • No late fees
      • No damage insurance

      Ya, I know, soon we'll be able to download the movies instead of going to the video store but this would be a nice feature for those who don't have broadband or need the movie to be portable.

  • No I have not RTFA, but if the flash ram retains it's data when the PC is off, couldnt we use it as a hard drive substitute rather than a RAM substitute?

    That would be pretty cool... Press button on. WHIZZ... Logon screen is there! Nice.. :)

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yes, and it will be sweet.

      The difficulty is that flash RAM currently isn't as fast as generic RAM and costs more, so it's not a cure-all.

    • if the flash ram retains it's data when the PC is off, couldnt we use it as a hard drive substitute rather than a RAM substitute?

      You mean like this [gumph.org] ?

    • Re:Usage as Hard Drives? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by StateOfTheUnion ( 762194 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:00AM (#10317708) Homepage
      I think that Flash RAM has limitations as to the number of times it can be rewritten . . . the number of possible rewrites is high (10's of thousands or more), but a swapspace in a hard disk would eventually read/write flash RAM into oblivion . . .

      • Dual storage machine? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by rreyelts ( 470154 )
        I'm beginning to think I'd like to see machines where we have dual storage setups - use the hard disk for write-many-read-many data (general data files), and use the flash memory for write-limited-read-many data. For example, imagine installing your OS and programs to flash memory - booting times and program loading times would be nearly instantaneous. (/me drools) You'd just have the flash memory mounted like any other storage device, and maybe some "wlrm" flag available to applications so they could autom
        • Once upon a time computers did boot their normal operating environment instantaneously. They had ROM mapped into the address space of the CPU. You turn on any TRS-80 Model 100, Color Computer, Commodore 64, etc. and your computer is ready to work because it's code is mapped into RAM much like a PC BIOS chip.

          Keep in mind though that when folks hook up a flash drive to their computer that they are not mapping it directly into RAM, rather they are layering on top a file system, so it's not going to be instant
    • I think the price would be prohibitive. A 120-gig harddrive can be found at about 90 bucks, meanwhile flash memory is about a gig for 90 bucks.

    • One can already buy Compact Flash to ATA adapters to use CF cards as hard drives. There are two primary drawbacks to this approach at the moment:

      CF cards tend to 'wear out' after a certain number of write cycles. Most estimates of lifespan range from 100K to 500K write cycles. (Working from memory - could be off a bit.)

      CF cards cost more per MB than traditional magnetic/rotating media drives. The cost means that the largest currently available cards may not be practical for most applications. Howev

      • I think your life estimates are a bit optimistic. But, on the other hand, as CF cards are mapped like a hard disk to the OS, maybe bad sectors are marked to be avoided, in the same way, so with some loss of capacity as blocks fail, you might get 100k cycles.

        Serious industrial and aerospace users design for more like 10k cycles max, and even then don't use them in critical applications. One particular CF card manufacturer's claims, which I think you may have seen, are known to have no basis in fact whatsoeve

  • obligatory: (Score:2, Informative)

    by zerocool^ ( 112121 )
    8 gigabits = 1 gigabyte
    2 gigabits = 256 megabytes

    And this was quoted from the article, which isn't talking about speed, which would be gigabits-per-second (sometimes abbreviated gigabits), this is size, as in (quote) Both chips hold far more data than current chips in their respective markets and are smaller, which should make them cheaper and more powerful than existing chips.

    Smaller, mabey. Higher capacity? No.

    Technological neophyte journalists.

    ~Wx
    • 8 gigabits = 1 gigabyte

      I use a PDP-9, you insensitive clod!

      Seriously, there is a fair amount of non-8-bit hardware out there... That's why we have MIME types that speak of 'octets' rather than 'bytes'.

      • Lucky thing most of that non-8 bit hardware is not hooked up to the internet. I mean when was the last time you actually used a PDP-9? It's not easy to keep those old dinosaurs working these days since replacement parts are getting extremely hard to find.

    • Re:obligatory: (Score:4, Informative)

      by c_oflynn ( 649487 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:02AM (#10317720)
      Could you point out where I can find a 256 MB RAM chip? I don't mean a ram stick with 8 or more ram chips, I mean just one ram chip.

      Ditto for the flash memory chips. Can't seem to find any 1GB flash chips (again not the drive, just the chip).

  • why is DRAM price not falling like flash? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by peter303 ( 12292 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:04AM (#10317736)
    I notice that DRAM prices, for the same technology, have stayed at their 2001 price level at $100 to $150 per gigabyte. During the same period flash memory has fallen from $300 per gigabyte to $80. I like to look for "odometer threshholds" when prices drop the next factor of ten (about every every five years). For example, hard disk fell below $1 / GB in 2003 and flash $100 / GB in 2004.
    I did read [computerweekly.com] recently there was some price fixing in the DRAM market.
    • I'm wondering if speed may be an issue in this case...

      In the flash memory market, capacity has more of an impact than speed, since the speeds are effectively fixed by the technology you're using the flash memory with. In the DRAM market, however, speed is much more of an issue. I might not need more capacity a year from now, but maybe I'd like to increase the speed of my memory instead.

      I tried finding some data to support this, but to no avail. I do remember buying DDR333 RAM a couple of years ago and hav
    • The reason DRAM prices have remained static (or have even risen a bit) and flash prices have fallen is because memory manufacturers have been moving a lot of their production off DRAM and onto flash ram.

      This means that the supply of DRAM remains fairly tight, and that prevents further price reductions. Meanwhile, a glut of flash ram is now developing, and the resulting oversupply is driving flash memory prices into the floor.
    • RAM manufacturers, having suffered torrid margins in recent years, have found out that people tend to buy RAM priced at certain price points and not much in between. As there is no hugely compelling reason for people to start buying 1GB DRAM sticks the prices will stay there to recoup the maximum from their investment.
      Wait till we get a large OS revision from MS that makes half a gig of RAM the starter point and you'll see a shift.
  • How about a system that runs the OS off a flash chip, but not just like a handheld. Embed that little flash chip on a Mother Board for the OS and use that to boot the system and keep the system state even after power off.

    Mmmm... instant on computers maybe?
    • Mmmm... instant on computers maybe?

      People seem to keep forgetting that flash memory is SLOW, even on just read, writes are often slower yet. I just bought a "4x" CF card, which apparently they want to rate it in terms of CD-R speed. 4x is 600 KB/s. Unless something changes, you will not like the results. To test it out, get Knoppix, put it on a CD and run it on a computer with a 4x read CD rom drive, assuming you can get one that old that can read CD-Rs.

      Also, flash is lucky to survive a million writ
    • Whadaya mean?

      One of the nice things about Compact Flash is that it was designed to work on an IDE bus. That means that with a cheap, simple
      adapter [acscontrol.com], that compact flash card is now an IDE hard drive.

      As for keeping the system state, don't power off, use "suspend-to-RAM".

      steve

  • Can someone explain??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by harrkev ( 623093 ) <kevin.harrelson@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:29AM (#10317883) Homepage
    Can someone explain why the FLASH memory is sooooo much larger than the DRAM chip? DRAM is just one cap and one transistor per bit, while the flash uses a MUCH more complicated structure for each bit. It involves at least two transistors per bit, one with a floating gate.

    For the same size die, I would expect that the DRAM would hold a little more than the FLASH. Either the FLASH die is huge compared to the DRAM die in this case, or I am missing something.

    Can anybody clue me in?
    • OK. I just RTFA. The FLASH uses a slightly smaller geometry. But I am still surprised by the large (fourfold) increase in the FLASH size comapred to the DRAM.
      • OK. I just RTFA. The FLASH uses a slightly smaller geometry. But I am still surprised by the large (fourfold) increase in the FLASH size comapred to the DRAM.

        Possibly they can get away with larger die sizes on FLASH because they can get away with errors. Many blocks (up to 1% I think) of a FLASH die are allowed to be bad (but reallocated) at production time, whereas a single bad bit in SDRAM means that die goes in the bin. I guess that makes it possible to have good yields even with large die areas.

    • Take a look at a DIMM... it usually has a bunch of chips on it. The 2GB DRAM will probably be on a DIMM of 8 DRAM chips... making the DIMM a 16GB DIMM.

      I'm assuming that the flash chips are much bigger (in physical size) because they are meant to be used alone (and will cost a lot more), but the DRAM chips are meant to be used in groups in a larger package.

      Then again, I might not know what the hell I'm talking about.
    • True, a RAM cell is just one capacitor and one transistor per bit. However, the capacitor needs a much larger area than the other components. Its capacitance must be much larger than any stray capacitances in the circuit, to hold the charge that represents the bit without any errors for the length of one refresh cycle.

    • Re:Can someone explain??? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bender_ ( 179208 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @10:40AM (#10319029) Journal
      The type of NAND Flash currently in use require just a single transistor to store two bits, either by the mirror-bit technology or by multilevel flash. A single NAND flash cell is 4F (F=smallest featuresize of the technology node). So it takes 2F to store one bit. Current DRAM cell sizes are 8F (or 6F with additional area sacrifice). Therefore the flash memory density is at least four times as high.

      In addition to that flash is MUCH easier to produce than dram.

  • that's certainly impressive... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zogger ( 617870 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @08:40AM (#10317950) Homepage Journal
    ....in a more/bigger/faster and more throw away culture. I'm impressed! But it's also depressing! How is that? Well, tell ya, this is like the horsepower wars out of Detroit in the 60's, more cubes and higher revs with higher compression. Ok as far as it went, but........it meant throw away cars, too.

    Tell ya whut I would be more impressed with technologically, if some RAM company wants to make a splash and show off some real branez. A smart and adaptive memory chip reader that you could stick in a ram slot like a daughtercard that you could then insert any mix or match multiple RAM sticks into and it would read and access and use them all.

    We are awash in so called "obsolete" RAM that is still functional. It used to be just a coupla decades ago we threw away stuff when it was broken. Now we throw away perfectly fine stuff, things that aren't broken, they are just "obsolete" although they might only be a few years old.

    Anyone see anything potentially wrong there? Same thing with CPUs. We have SMP mobos (and kernels), how about NON-SMP MO mobos, any braniacs got any examples of that, were you can mix and match older processors and keep using them? I know you can make a cluster whatsis with older boxes, I am talking a single machine that you could add tons of older oddball ram sticks to and plug in a variety of CPUs.

    To me, RAM and CPUs should be treated like drives and other peripherals, you should be able to daisy chain them better (different kinds, sizes, functions, etc) on a single machine.

    • You don't hang around with many marketing folks, do you? ;-)

    • ".......it meant throw away cars, too."

      what? many of those cars were easy to maintain and keep going. It's now that we are approaching throwaway cars.
      There dificult to maintain and cheap.
      Something become throwaway when it it cheaper to replace then fix. I can buy a new car for 7 grand. granted it's the bottom of the line, but I could buy one every 5 years and always be under warrenty.

      " mix or match multiple RAM sticks into and it would read and access and use them all."
      yes, that would be cool, but after a
    • Uhm, just because they're on the same MOBO, doesn't mean you DON'T have a cluster. Me thinks you need a good education in Parallel processing. [amazon.com]

      And for that matter, computer hardware design. [amazon.com]

      Its great that you are jazzed about salvaging older parts; harness this energy to learning about computer design.

      P.S.- I threw out my maxxed out PowerMac 7200 dual booting to linux/Mac OS 8. Why? Too slow. I had other machines to work on at home. Love's labour's lost.

  • How do they fit this? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Last I checked, most memory technologies required at least 1-T per bit. I don't know if that's true for flash technology, but still. 8Gb would be 8+ billion transistors not including decode logic and amplifiers. Wouldn't this make these flash chips have the highest transistor counts on the planet?

    Last I checked, the highest transistor counts we had were around 400-500 million. That's like 1/16 of what would be needed to do this. What am I missing?
    • Last I checked, most memory technologies required at least 1-T per bit. I don't know if that's true for flash technology, but still.

      Its currently at two bits per transistor. Search for "multi level flash", "mirror bit flash", "NROM"..
  • we can get a meg^H^H^HGiga^H^H^H^HTerraByte of ram!

    640 PetaBytes should be enough for anyone....well everyone, really
  • Flash chips, which retain data after a host computer is turned off, are used in flash cards and cell phones, while DDR DRAM is used inside PCs.

    I'm so glad to get useful computer tips like this. This is why I love this forum. You never know when some obscure technology will suddenly become crystal clear by means of a helpful, knowledgeable story poster. My spelling has improved because of Slashdot, too. Thanks, guys! You're real swell.

    Sincerely,

    A grateful IT professional.

  • I got one of those 1GB SD chips for $110 a couple of weeks ago, and now they're $94. That's a 10% drop in 10 days, and they're still dropping. And there's now a miniSD form, so 1GB the size of my fingernail, or 10GB the size of a stamp, is looking good. Samsung is driving down these prices. I'd love someone to get the power requirements down to the point where something like RFID could let me read them wherever they were stored in my apartment. I'd keep the data encrypted, and sticking them into every produ

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